The Kingdom Perspective

Transcript:

Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.

There is a paradox to generosity. Jesus puts it this way: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). “Blessedness” doesn’t come from getting but from giving. The more you give, the more you will find. We gain by losing.

This is very counterintuitive to the native posture of our sinful hearts. We tend to believe the more we hoard the happier we will be. But this is not the way God made the world…or us.

Neither God nor the world He made operates on such a “scarcity mindset”. A farmer gets more grain by “giving up” the grain he has, sowing it in the soil in hopes of a bigger harvest. The businessman gets more money, by “giving it away”, investing in his business and in the market, looking for a greater return.

The same is true with our stewardship in the kingdom of God. If we operate with a hoarding scarcity mindset, we will never have enough. However, if we operate with a generosity abundance mindset, God will make sure “we have all sufficiency in all things at all times, so that we may abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).

The book of Proverbs puts it this way:

One gives freely, yet grows all the richer;

another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want.

Whoever brings blessing will be enriched,

and one who waters will himself be watered.

~Provers 11:24-25 (ESV)

As John Bunyan so eloquently put it: “There was a man, the world did think him mad, the more he gave away, the more he had.”

Bottom line: you cannot outgive God!

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written,

    ‘He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor;

     his righteousness endures forever.’

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others, while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!”

~2 Corinthians 9:6-15 (ESV)

Transcript:

Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.

God is a god of abundance, not of scarcity—and this abundance is on display in all that He has made. God is not a miserable miser, but a glad Giver of all good things. He is happy and blessed (Ephesians 1:3; Romans 1:25) and overflowing with joy, precisely because He has an infinite capacity for generosity. Now, this is no mere theory. Such core beliefs about God’s basic nature and posture towards you, deeply affect the posture we take towards generosity in our own lives.

Not surprising then that generous people are joyful people, but greedy people are grumpy. Such greedy and grumpy people believe God is stingy toward them or unable to “make all grace abound” to them (2 Corinthians 9:8). They believe God owes them something. On the contrary, generous people realize everything is a gift of His grace—all of life! That there’s nothing we have we’ve not first received. So, they are grateful for God’s gifts and are glad to pass them on to others.

How your heart falls on this matter will affect the way you steward the resources God’s given: your time, your treasure and your talents. Seeing God’s generosity will make you generous. However, believing God is holding back—that He’s grumpy and greedy—will make you the same.

So, how do you lean into this joy of generosity? Well, start doing it! The more you give the more you will develop a capacity for joy. Giving makes you glad! The great London preacher Charles Spurgeon suggested the reason the sun shines so brightly is that it is always giving itself away. This is why God is the happiest of all, because He’s the giver of all good things.

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith…”

~Galatians 6:6-10 (ESV)

Transcript:

Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.

Allow me to ask you a question. Do you consider yourself a spiritually strong person or a spiritually weak person? I find that for most of us there is a deep longing to be a spiritually strong person. We don’t like the feeling of weakness and neediness. We even surmise that being spiritually weak or needy is somehow problematic or wrong, as if we are letting God down or disappointing Him in some way. But maybe there is something wrong with our push for spiritual power and avoidance of any sense of spiritual weakness.

To be honest, I know that feeling of spiritual weakness all too well, and in response to it I have found it helpful to remember the utter upside-down nature of Christ’s kingdom—that in my weakness I am strong. As Paul puts it, God’s grace is sufficient in my weakness, because He promises that His power is perfected in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). As Jesus put it, it is the “poor in spirit” who are blessed and receive the kingdom.

My friends, this message is so counter-intuitive and therefore so hard to grasp! It is for this reason that I have become increasingly thankful that God reminds us that the critical piece is not that we “grasp” God’s grace, but that it grasps us—not that we hold on to Jesus (though we should…and ultimately will) but that He has promised to hold on to us despite the weakness of our grasp on Him (John 10:27-30).

Dear Christian Friend, we are in the good hands of our Heavenly Father.

And that’s something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

~2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (ESV)

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

~John 10:27-29 (ESV)

Transcript:

Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.

Our God is a God of abundance and generosity. This is seen in who He is and in all that He does.

Just consider something as common as the earth God created, the ground we all walk on. It’s made of dirt and rock. It’s so cheap and mundane we trample it underfoot without thought. It’s just “dirt”!

Yet, that dirt is so rich and diverse in its elements that we can dig into it and draw out materials to produce stunning works of art and powerful supercomputers. We can fashion its elements into cars and smartphones. We can use it to construct buildings so tall they literally reach the clouds. We can split the atoms of some of these elements to create power for modern civilization. We can use other elements to make spaceships that explore the outer reaches of our solar system.

This inherent abundance is why in Genesis, God commanded humans to “cultivate” the earth (Genesis 2). The word cultivate implies a generous potential hidden in the dirt under our feet—that God created the earth in such a way it can be developed and fashioned into something greater than it is.

In this we see we need not have a scarcity mindset with the resources God has given to us. We can have a generosity abundance mindset, giving our stuff away to the glory of God, “cultivating” it, knowing God is able to return it multiplied to meet our every need.

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord, saying: ‘Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you. You show steadfast love to thousands, but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them, O great and mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts, great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of man, rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.’”

~Jeremiah 32:16-19 (ESV)

“Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.”

~Genesis 2:10-15

Transcript:

Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.

Our God is a god of generosity and abundance. We see this in several ways. First is the limitlessness of His very being. God is not bound by time and space. He’s not bound by anything outside Himself, at all. God needs nothing to exist for He is being itself, and so, He alone possesses the power to call into being that which does not exist.

Secondly, God’s abundance is demonstrated in all He has made. The universe we see is bigger than we can imagine. It’s only been about a hundred years or so since Edwin Hubble discovered that our galaxy is one among others. Since that time, we’ve learned there are at least hundreds of billions of galaxies, each on average containing billions of stars. And we are discovering more all the time! This means that from our human vantage point, for all practical purposes, the universe God made is beyond limit.

But all of this is backdrop to His greatest demonstration of generosity of all—the abundance of the riches of His grace toward us in Christ Jesus! When God decided to redeem fallen humanity, He spared no expense. He liquidated the full riches of heaven. He gave us the fullness of Himself in Christ. As Paul puts it in Ephesians, He has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 1:3).

The God we serve is not stingy. Why in the world should we be?

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

~Ephesians 2:1-7 (ESV)

Transcript:

Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.

Generosity is at the very heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, it is not surprising this same Jesus who generously gave His life for our redemption is the same one who made a world so abundantly diverse. Jesus wove abundance and generosity into the very fabric of His creation.

The Bible tells us that God created a universe with abundant potential—a multiplying and reproducing creation filled with a diversity of plants and animals. God made hundreds of thousands of plants “bearing fruit…yielding seed according to their kind” (Genesis 1:12). Likewise, He commanded the millions of animal species He made to be “fruitful and multiply and fill” the earth (Genesis 1:22). This is why a farmer can start with a few basic seeds and animals and multiply not only enough food to feed the world but also develop an endless diversity of new subspecies. Did you know, for instance, that broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower and kale are all cultivated from the same basic species (i.e., Brassica oleracea)? Similarly, all the variety of dog breeds were hidden in the one grey wolf. All dog breeds are just domestications of the same species (Canis lupus). From Great Danes to chihuahuas, the inherent abundance of God’s creation is on display.

Thus, creation itself is a rebuke to any stinginess or small-mindedness. Neither God nor His creation is marked by such tight-fistedness…and neither should we.

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day…

~ Genesis 1:1-23 (ESV)

Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!

Early Christians were known for their care of the weak and frail. This contrasted deeply with the callous culture in which they lived.

For example, the Law of the Twelve Tables, the earliest codification of Roman Law (c. 450-451 BC) required fathers to kill any deformed child. Though this Law was no longer in force during the rise of the church, its basic ethos continued to influence Roman culture. As a matter of fact, one historian notes that in one Roman village, “archaeologists found one hundred skeletons of infants less than a week old in the sewers under the Roman baths. The babies were ‘unwanted’ or ‘inconvenient’ and so were literally flushed down the drain” (Why You Think the Way You Do, p. 34).

Christians refused to participate in such practices. Following Holy Scripture, they knew that every human was made in the image of God, regardless of how weak, deformed, or “unwanted”. Moreover, since they held that God Himself had become a real human (bodily!) in Jesus Christ, the value they placed on the human body was elevated to previously unknown heights. The Gospel of Matthew speaks of the conception and birth of Jesus Christ saying: “that which is conceived in Mary is from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20). At the center of the gospel story is God Himself taking on human flesh, becoming a weak and helpless infant, even a hidden embryo.

This radically altered the way Christians viewed the weak and frail and, thus, drove them to reject not only the common practice of infanticide, but also the common practice of abortion.

As modern historian Rodney Stark put it:

“…perhaps above all else, Christianity brought a new conception of humanity to a world saturated with capricious cruelty and the vicarious love of death....”

“…what Christianity gave to its converts was nothing less than their humanity.”

~Rodney Stark as quoted on PBS Frontline: “From Jesus to Christ”

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

     “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

      and they shall call his name Immanuel”

(which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus..”

~ Matthew 1:18-23 (ESV)

Sources to consider:

Law of the Twelve Tables

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Law-of-the-Twelve-Tables

The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History by Rodney Stark (Princeton University Press 2020).

The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbably Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire by Alan Kreider (Baker Academic 2016).

Why You Think the Way You Do: The Story of Western Worldviews from Rome to Home by Glenn S. Sunshine (Zondervan 2009).

The Didache (Chapter 2).

Transcript:

Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.

What does the Bible say about racism and ethnocentrism? A whole lot!

The Bible tells us that we all have a shared origin and identity. God made each of us in the image of God. The Apostle Paul explains it this way: God “made from one man [i.e., Adam] every nation” and He did so…that they should seek God and perhaps find Him” (Acts 17:26-27). And so, there is no such thing as a superior race or people group. Even when God chose Abraham to create the nation of Israel, He explicitly says He did so that all the people groups on the earth might be blessed. Ultimately, this is fulfilled in the Jesus, who died to secure the promise of Abraham to all the nations (Galatians 3:6-16). God is no respecter of persons.

This brings us to our second point. The Bible tells us that Christ will redeem people from every nationality, people group and language—a multitude so vast that no one will be able to number them! On that final day, there will be “full representation” of all humanity at God’s table.

Heaven will be a multiethnic and multicultural place—a diversity of humanity like the world has never seen, all unified in the worship of the one true God who died to save us.

Those that refuse to embrace this, and certainly those that oppose it in their racism and ethnocentrism, are not fit for heaven. They must be transformed, for they are at best tacit enemies of God’s grace. 

Are you growing in your love of the diversity of God’s people?

That’s something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

The next day Peter started out with them, and some of the believers from Joppa went along. The following day he arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”

While talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?”

Cornelius answered: “Three days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me and said, ‘Cornelius, God has heard your prayer and remembered your gifts to the poor. Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, who lives by the sea.’ So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”

Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

 “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.

Then Peter said, “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days.

~Acts 10:23-48 (NIV)

Transcript:

Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to the Kingdom Perspective.

In the frenetic pace of modern life, rest is often the first casualty.

However, biblically speaking, rest is a good and necessary thing. God instituted a Sabbath in the very created order. He commanded the children of Israel to “Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy”. In other words, the nation of Israel was to cease from their labors, one day in seven, and reflect upon the fact that God provides for His people even when they are helpless. Indeed, it was in their helplessness that He delivered them from 24/7 slavery in Egypt.

You see, God is not like the pagan deities or rulers, that demand round the clock toil. Human beings were not created for subservience but to experience the glory of God. Even God himself shared His rule with human beings when He gave them dominion over the creation. Indeed, even our destiny in the kingdom of Heaven is spoken of as a sabbath rest where we will reign with King Jesus.

Now, good Christians can debate about the proper application of the Sabbath command in the life of the church. However, what we cannot debate about is the heart of that command: God is a god who gives rest. Neither can we debate about the propriety of the command: we are mere creatures which God in His grace has made kings of His creation, and so we need rest and deserve it.

Slaves have to work 24/7. Kings are free to enjoy the pleasure of their dominion.

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’

   So God created man in his own image,

   in the image of God he created him;

   male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

~Genesis 1:26-31 (ESV)

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”

~Genesis 2:1-3 (ESV)

Transcript:

Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!

What is the truly wise way to engage in our present cultural conflicts?

As a society, we are increasingly tempted to divide along “us vs. them” lines and demonize those that disagree with us. But the Bible suggests that such ungracious posturing can easily drive us to be pawns of the devil, (James 3:15). Satan is the master of bitterness and division. He loves to hate, and he hates to love. The devil is quite content to convince you of your “rightness”, “your truth”, so long as it does not lead you to love those you think are wrong, or you feel have wronged you.

Now, this isn’t to suggest that there is no such thing as truth! The Bible clearly says there is! But it also tells us that there is no genuine knowledge of truth without humility and love.

Paul warns the division-prone Corinthian church:

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone thinks that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know…” (1 Corinthians 8:1-3).

When Jesus, the embodiment of all truth and wisdom, entered this world, He was gentle and humble of heart (Matt. 11:30). Genuine Wisdom conquered us by serving us and dying for our sin. Indeed, the foolishness of God is wiser than our wisdom (1 Cor. 1:25). Christ-like spirituality is marked not by how “right” you are, but by whether you can serve and die for those you think are wrong. Jesus died for His enemies. He suffered for those who hated Him. If you call yourself a Christian, you must expect no less from yourself. After all, Jesus died even for you.

As we walk in the footsteps of Jesus, we can be assured not only that God is pleased, but also that truth will indeed win.

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

   and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

~1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (ESV)